You look like you adjusted well.” She appraised his tailored suit, his crisp white shirt. “Are you working here?”
“As opposed to what? Of course I’m working. Still and ever with the Army Corps. Headquartered in Boston, but constantly out on civil engineering projects.”
“Oh, Ben.” She sighed, remembering the past, gazing at him fondly. “So how was it? Where did you live? What did you eat? Did you work long days? Did you get hurt? Was there any fun?”
He smiled, with amusement, with pleasure. “That’s a mouthful of questions.”
“I know. I’m sorry!”
He got a look in his eyes as if he were recalling a lost lover. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined.”
“Aren’t most things?”
“I don’t know,” said Ben. “Depends on the things.” Without a blink, he continued. “Panama is more mountainous than I expected. More dramatically landscaped. Rocky. It’s nearly completely covered by impenetrable forest. Dissected with rivers, streams, deep gorges. It’s tropically hot, it pours rain like you’ve never seen, and then is dry like the desert. The fish is good.” He smiled broadly. “The women are very friendly.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be friendly to a handsome American man like you,” Gina said, just as Rose stuck her head in, reminding her that the patients were still not fed, and it was well past six. But there was still so much to talk about! Gina jumped up with regret and hurried to the stove, organizing the tray with the stacked soup bowls and bread.
“Here,” Ben said. “Let me help.” He took off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his vest, rolled up his white sleeves, and carried the soup tureen into the annex.
It was after seven and dark when they were finished with the feeding and the cleaning up.
“Sorry you spent such a long time helping me,” said Gina. “I thought we might have time to go for a walk. Concord is lovely in the fall.”
He chuckled.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m trying to remember what Louisa May Alcott wrote about Concord. As I recall, it wasn’t very complimentary.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Gina said. “She lived and died in Orchard House, just down the road. But …”
“Another time perhaps.”
“Yes.” She mulled things over quickly, chewing her lip. “Could you maybe take me back to Lawrence? I don’t like to travel alone. You could keep me company, we could finish our catch-up and I’ll make you dinner for your trouble.” She smiled. “What do you say? I have a recipe for mustard chicken.”
He nodded. “I’d be happy to take you home. You shouldn’t travel alone this late. But let’s not wait until Lawrence. How about dinner first? You must be hungry after a full day’s work. Let’s go to Wright’s Tavern.”
“Go where?” She glanced at her skirt. “I can’t … I’m not dressed for dinner. I can’t show myself in a nice restaurant.”
“Who said anything about nice? Wright’s Tavern, I told you. You’ll be the best dressed woman in the place. Possibly the only woman.”
She laughed. “Ben, what could you possibly know about taverns in Concord?”
“It’s the only thing I know about Concord. Except what Louisa May Alcott wrote.”
She chewed her lip, curious, ambivalent, hungry.
Ben must have been reading her thoughts. He leaned closer to her. “You’re worried about propriety?”
She nodded.
“Manners do dictate that a woman cannot be seen out and about with a man alone unless she is married.”
“That’s what I feared, I mean, um, thought.”
“But Gina, do I need to remind you that you are married?” Ben straightened up. “In every way, even this one, we can be proper Bostonians.”
She laughed happily, she couldn’t help herself. “Please, another time?” She really wasn’t dressed to go out. Ladies didn’t go out in stained clothing in public. She pulled out a train schedule from her purse.
“I tell you what,” Ben said, taking the booklet out of her hands. “How about we take my car.” He led her outside.
“You have a car?”
“Why are you surprised? Everybody has one.”
“We don’t,” Gina said. “We can’t afford it. Harry says only rich people have cars.”
“That may have been true in 1905 when Bill Haywood was yelling that only oppressors like Harry had cars. But now, thanks to Mr. Ford and his assembly line, there are two million cars on the road. He has transformed the United States. A nation of toilers is fast becoming a nation of consumers.”
“Not me,” Gina said. “I’m still a toiler. You must make a good living if you can afford a car.” She said this with a feeling approaching envy.
“Not really. I just make a living. But I will say that in Panama”—he smiled—“they paid us engineers as if we were kings. They paid us more than they paid the doctors! Can you imagine? And they paid the chief engineers most of all. I saved all my money. I had nothing to spend it on. All I did was work. The housing was paid for and the Canal Commissary fed tens of thousands of workers for free.”
Gina could tell he was trying to make her feel better. Someone else to pay for her food and housing? What would that be like?
Rose walked out to say goodbye. “Ben, come again. You’re always welcome.”
“Maybe next time I could help a bit more?”
“Help do what?” asked Gina.
“I don’t know. This place is run by women. There must be something a man could do. Fix a window? Repair a door knob?”
Rose put her grateful hand on Ben’s. “You know one of my deepest regrets is that no matter how I try I can never get good devoted men to come and shoulder the burden of this work, care for the sick men the way we attend to sick women.”
Ben lowered his head to her. “I don’t know about attending to the sick, Sister Alphonsa,” he said, using the name Rose had adopted when she joined the convent. “But I’ll fix your windows and patch your doors.”
“Oh!” Gina said. “We have dozens of projects like that.”
“We certainly do,” said Rose. “Our Ben can also be a servant of relief.”
After they passed Andover and neared Lawrence, Ben slowed down his vehicle. Gina hadn’t nearly finished her story of the last ten years of her life.
“Since
